5 Takeaways from JD Vance’s NCPB Speech

By: Jonathan Liedl, originally published February 28, 2025, National Catholic Register

ANALYSIS: Vance argues that Catholic political engagement should prioritize peace and economic stability alongside pro-life and religious liberty concerns.

JD Vance may be a recent convert, but in his first public speech to an explicitly Catholic audience since becoming vice president, he didn’t miss his chance to present himself as a thought leader within American Catholicism.

And that included making the case that the old way of conservative Catholic political engagement in the U.S. is over.

Speaking at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast (NCPB) Friday morning, Vice President Vance contended that pursuing international peace and economic policies that promote the common good are Catholic priorities worthy of being mentioned alongside protecting the sanctity of life and religious liberty.

“I think that what the Catholic Church calls me to do is to say that if the stock market’s doing okay but people are literally dying and losing years off of their life then we have to do better as a country,” said Vance, whose remarks diverged from emphases on individual liberty and the promotion of democracy abroad that had been mainstays in D.C. Catholic conservative circles for decades.

Vance, who became Catholic in 2019, also acknowledged his recent public disagreement with the U.S. bishops and Pope Francis over immigration and foreign aid, but did not directly respond to the prelates’ criticisms of the Trump administration’s position.

Instead, the vice president called for greater listening in public conversations and encouraged Catholics to stop politicizing the statements of their clergy. Then, he led those gathered in praying for the Pope, who has been hospitalized since Feb. 14 with a respiratory infection.

“If the Holy Father can hear us, I hope he knows that there are thousands of faithful Catholics in this room and millions of faithful Catholics in this country who are praying for him as he weathers this particular storm,” said Vance, just hours before the Vatican reported that the Pope’s condition had worsened.

And in comments that will likely further endear him to Catholic conservatives, the 40-year-old Vance joked about trying to stay out of the “civil war” between Jesuits and Dominicans, said that his seven-year-old child’s decision to be baptized this past November was his “proudest moment” as a father, and embraced his status as a “baby Catholic.”

The vice president’s presence at the breakfast offered something of a reprieve from what has otherwise been a contentious 24 hours for the Trump administration, including its relationship with the Catholic Church. On Thursday, the State Department cut off funding for the U.S. bishops’ refugee resettlement program amid the bishops’ lawsuit seeking millions in reimbursement funds. And shortly after Vance’s speech, he joined Trump in the Oval Office for a contentious meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

But before that, Vance’s mix of personal anecdotes about his faith with serious reflections about the public policy implications of Catholic social teaching demonstrated his potency as a Catholic thought leader, one who will likely influence Catholic conversations about political engagement for decades to come.

Here are five takeaways from Vice President JD Vance’s address to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.

1. Vance is reshaping conservative Catholic political engagement.

Vance played up the way the Trump administration, at least compared to the White House under Joe Biden, has already delivered on perennial priorities among conservative Catholics: religious liberty and pro-life policies.

But in the same breath, the Republican leader linked these principles to ones that certainly were not on the conservative Catholic priority list less than a decade ago: restrained foreign policy and economic populism.

In fact, in defending what he described as the Trump administration’s peace-first foreign policy, the Marine veteran argued that American intervention abroad has directly contributed to the demise of Christians’ religious liberty.

“One of the things, I have to be honest, that I am most ashamed about is that in the United States of America sometimes it is our foreign misadventures that lead to the eradication of historical Christian communities all over the world,” said Vance, who served in Iraq, where the Christian population has been reduced by 75% since the United States’s 2003 invasion.

Similarly, Vance emphasized that rising GDP rates don’t mean anything if ordinary Americans aren’t flourishing.

“The real measure of health in a society is the safety and stability and the health of our families and of our people,” said Vance, who has been described as a “religious populist.”

The populist shift of Catholic conservatives away from neoconservatism certainly preceded Vance’s political ascendancy. But in his speech Friday, the vice president demonstrated why he will be the movement’s standard bearer moving forward.

2. The VP is also trying to “Catholicize” Trump’s policies

Vance acknowledged that there were likely people in the Catholic audience who disagreed with the Trump administration “on any number of issues,” which could have been a reference to everything from in vitro fertilization to mass deportation.

But the vice president did his best to place some of the Trump administration’s policies in a better Catholic light.

For instance, when Vance spoke about “prosperity,” a constant buzzword for Trump, he suggested that it wasn’t solely about material wealth.

“Yes, we care about prosperity, but we care about prosperity so that we can promote the common good of every citizen in the United States of America,” said Vance.

Similarly, he framed Trump’s push to end conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East as oriented “towards saving lives and carrying out one of Christ’s most important commandments.” He described the president’s pursuit of “a path of peace” as a policy area where Trump “is most in accord with Christian social teaching and with the Catholic faith more than any president in my lifetime.”

However, during Vance’s brief comments on immigration, he didn’t appeal to anything from Catholic teaching (as he has before, for instance, by referencing a medieval theological concept called the ordo amoris). Instead, he simply said that he would continue to advance his hardline stance on immigration “because it serves the best interest of the American people.”

Vance is clearly committed to reframing Trump’s policies in light of Catholic teaching — when possible. But what he does on the harder-to-square positions will be more telling.

3. Vance steered clear of conflict with the U.S. bishops and Pope Francis.

U.S. Catholic politicians running afoul of their spiritual leaders is nothing new. And Vance certainly qualifies, after his suggestion that U.S. bishops engaged in refugee resettlement to pad their bottom line earned some sharp rebukes, and his use of the ordo amoris to justify the Trump administration’s mass deportation program earned him a reprimand from Pope Francis.

However, in his remarks at the NCPB, the vice president took a different public strategy than other Catholic politicians who have been publicly called out by Church leaders.

Although Vance didn’t apologize for or amend any of his comments, he also didn’t downplay the spiritual authority of the Pope or the bishops — something that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for instance, did when she was barred from Communion by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for her pro-abortion positions.

“I think that’s the wrong way to look at it and that’s certainly not the right way to look at it for me,” said Vance of those who say clergy should stay out of public policy.

Instead, the vice president suggested that in an age of social media, Catholics should be less willing to offer “political criticism” of clergy, or of dragging “the Holy Father into every culture war battle in American politics.”

“Sometimes we should let this stuff play out a little bit and try to live our faith as best we can,” he said, and not hold spiritual leaders “to the same standards of social media influencers, because they’re not.”

A humble suggestion for a better form of Catholic engagement in politics? Or a clever rhetorical sidestep of papal criticism? Maybe both.

4. The “baby Catholic” welcomes feedback.

Some Catholics have criticized Vance’s theological views because of his relatively recent entry into the Church, something the vice president is aware of and joked about at the NCPB.

“It turns out there are some people on the internet who don’t like Catholic converts,” he quipped.

At the same time, the vice president didn’t shy away from the fact that he is still learning about Catholicism, and might not always get every aspect of it right.

“I recognize very much that I am a ‘baby Catholic,’” said Vance, who was raised evangelical but became an atheist before making his way to Catholicism.

The vice president promised that his fellow Catholics will have an “open door” with the Trump administration when it comes to sharing concerns and corrections. Acknowledging that he lives in a “roaming bubble” of Secret Service protection, Vance insisted that people of faith communicate with the administration “when we get things right but also when we get things wrong.”

“I will always try to remind myself that the goal of our public policy is to promote the common good and I will fight for that every single day that I am a public official,” he said.

Whether Vance’s “open door” affects the Trump administration’s policies or not, it’s likely a valuable political overture as some of the president’s priorities continue to risk alienating Catholics.

5. The vice president’s ability to get personal will score him points.

Vance’s familiarity with aspects of the Catholic intellectual tradition makes him unique among national politicians, but his ability to connect with his audience is what will allow him to be effective. And the vice president showed this ability in spades at the NCPB.

He spoke candidly about the slow pace of grace, acknowledging how when he first became Catholic he struggled to make it to Mass every Sunday (having to go to confession was an effective motivator, he said, adding that he’s now batting “like 95%”).

“While I am as imperfect a Christian as any person in this room, I really do feel that God is transforming me every single day and that’s one of the great blessings of our faith” and the sacramental life, said Vance.

Vance also shared that while he and his wife, Usha, a Hindu, have agreed to raise their three children Catholic, they’ll let their kids decide when they’re ready to be baptized.

“If that’s terrible sacrilege, then blame the Dominicans, because they’re the ones who came up with this scheme,” said Vance, before sharing how proud he was when his 7-year-old son, Ewan, was baptized this past November.

But the most impactful moment of the whole speech came at its conclusion, when Vance led those gathered in a prayer for Pope Francis. This was preceded by his own reflections upon the pastoral guidance of the Holy Father, and a lengthy recitation of part of the homily Pope Francis gave on March 20, 2020, shortly after he blessed an empty St. Peter’s Square amid the COVID-19 epidemic.

When Vance spoke about his faith, it was real and personal. It was also likely politically beneficial, at least among those in the room. The two often seem to go hand in hand for the Millennial vice president, who conducts his PR over Twitter, quotes St. Augustine, and is poised to have an extraordinary impact on Catholic political life in America.

Jonathan Liedl is senior editor for the Register.